HOTEL DINING, UPDATED CHINESE AND MORE
by FLORENCE FABRICANT
Great restaurants no longer wait for fall. Consider Bâtard and Racines NY, which both arrived in the last few months. Nonetheless, armed with my shiny new pencil case and notebook, I anticipate the fresh crop of restaurants the way I do the new theater and opera seasons.
Imagine! A wine bar named for and run by Aldo Sohm, the prizewinning sommelier at Le Bernardin, with Eric Ripert unleashing his inner carnivore on a menu offering no fish whatsoever. Or the gallery mogul Larry Gagosian spending some spare change on Kappo Masa, a restaurant with the kaiseki king Masa Takayama wrangling the fish and rice. And there’s Ralph Lauren, out to replicate the fashionable splash of his restaurants in Chicago and Paris, with the Polo Bar next to his new flagship store on Fifth Avenue.
I’m looking forward to digging into Sarah Simmons’s fried chicken, cleverly paired with Champagne at Birds & Bubbles. I’m curious to sample the work of the out-of-town chefs who will rotate through Chef’s Club by Food & Wine. After a few dinners at Nick Kim and Jimmy Lau’s pop-up Shuko at the Beach in East Hampton, N.Y., I’m eager to see what they’ll do on East 12th Street. And I’m ready to check out a more expansive Parm in my Upper West Side neighborhood, as well as the Parm team’s seafood restaurant alongside the new Whitney Museum at the foot of the High Line. On my to-do list: waltzing again on the revolving dance floor of the Rainbow Room; securing a table at Dirt Candy when it moves and starts taking reservations; experiencing a Manhattan version of the Brooklyn Fare tasting counter.
New Yorkers will soon discover whether the Italian star chef Davide Scabin can persuade customers at Mulino a Vino to select their wines first, before the food. And whether the latest restaurant in Avery Fisher Hall will offer a good reason, other than convenience, to dine there.
And that’s just this year. Beckoning in 2015, beyond the scope of this list, are a new showcase for Gabriel Kreuther, late of the Modern; ABC Home Grown from Jean-Georges Vongerichten; a Batali-Bastianich seafood restaurant replacing La Bottega in the Maritime Hotel; Le Coq Rico for chicken and other birds by the French chef Antoine Westermann; a ripe new Rouge Tomate; and maybe, just maybe, a reincarnation of L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon.
In Dining Deserts, Options Now Bloom
The chef Nick Anderer at Marta, a new pizza restaurant in what is now the Martha Washington Hotel. Credit Andrew Renneisen/The New York Times
Even restaurant-clogged Manhattan has its food deserts, neighborhoods where dining destinations have been sparse for years. But as restaurateurs seek out less-expensive and less-saturated areas, a few are coming to life.
Take the swath of Midtown from Murray Hill’s postgraduate bars to the lunch mills of the garment district. Sachi Asian Kitchen and Zuma, a satellite of the London-based Japanese-food chain, are moving in, joining Fabrick and Beer & Buns. The Korean barbecue chain Kang Ho Dong Baekjeong is a natural fit for the area around Koreatown. The Empire State Building will get a ground-floor steakhouse, the State Grill and Bar. Devotees of the tasting menu will welcome the long-awaited Brooklyn Fare Manhattan. And Danny Meyer’s team will try its hand at Roman pizza at Marta, in the new Martha Washington Hotel (formerly the King & Grove).
Lower Manhattan, now a residential as well as a financial hub, is also perking up. The highlight is the World Financial Center’s makeover into Brookfield Place, which will add a gigantic French marketplace, Le District; a version of Parm; and next year, Amada, from the prolific Philadelphia chef Jose Garces. Nearby, in Battery Park, Pier A Harbor House will have 600 seats for slurping oysters and watching sunsets across the Hudson. To the east, near South Street Seaport, Industry Kitchen will serve comfort food in a hard-edge setting with communal tables. And the more-distant future may bring a downtown Eataly.
(ORIGINAL ARTICLE)
OPTIONS NOW BLOOM
